http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Washington/Misc/lcore9914.htm

relevant quote:

"Rounding the numbers, about 1 in 12 U.S. federal government systems (6,400 out of 72,000) are now deemed to be mission-critical, you see, but that number used to be much higher (9,000). Additionally, from Yourdon's observations and from Willemssen's testimony, you can see that the assertions in the three articles quoted at the top must actually refer only to FAA's mission-critical systems, not to all of FAA's systems. That's an important fact that cannot be gleaned from the news stories, and which may very well have been blown right past the reporters and, maybe, blown right past congressmen and everybody else, too.

Remember: when the government and the press tell us that the federal government has achieved 90% compliance by March 31, 1999, what they are really telling us is that only eight percent of the federal government's 72,000 systems have been fixed. (That doesn't mean, by the way, that 66,000 systems will still need to be fixed: by no means do all systems require Y2K fixing, and some can be replaced or "retired".) Moreover -- and not to be forgotten -- the state of the project and the rate of progress is self-reported, as Willemssen notes in passing in his FAA testimony."

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 06, 1999

Answers

Arlin, here is a post by Kevin in a previous thread relaing to this subject. It says volumes:

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"Comments about the FAA from March 1999: http://www.y2kculture.com/reality/19990308.travel.html

[snip]

What did an official in the FAA's inspector general's office -- aka an internal auditor -- think?

Alexis Stefani was much less optimistic. Only 31 percent of the agency's computers were completely fixed, she told the committee.

"FAA now faces an additional kind of problem. They're shooting for the end of June to have all of their systems done, but it becomes an implementation [problem]," Stefani said, noting that some systems are scattered around dozens or even hundreds of locations. Technicans have to travel to each of them.

Another problem? Some systems are customized. "There may have been local adaptations at that facility... that will have to be dealt with when they actually implement the Y2K fix at that location," Stefani said.

In other words, even though the planes and computers owned by private companies should be fine, the government-controlled air traffic system may not be. No wonder the airline industry is so spooked.

[end snip]

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 06, 1999. "

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I am also going to post an excellent post by FM on the same subject. I think we have hit an exposed nerve regarding the FAA.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), April 06, 1999.

Arlin, here is the post from FM.

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"One-stop shopping for Federal Government Inspectors General sites:

http://www.ignet.gov/ignet/internal/iglist.html

One problem though: clicking through, it appears in most cases, no new y2k info has been posted since last year (with some exceptions--most notably the Dept. of Treasury Y2K document that bears the publication date December 1999!).

Anyway--that's how you get there, even if you find no "there."

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 06, 1999. "

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I think the Inspector General and GAO reports may be the best source for unbiased agency status than anything else available.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), April 06, 1999.

Oh Maria, defender of all things FAA, where are you? You're needed on this thread desperately!

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), April 06, 1999.